The Metaphysical Basis of Science. 25 



thing which will always and uniformly obey. There can be no 

 conception of force except as acting, and the sole medium of 

 such activity is matter. Thus again, matter is the condition 

 of all communication from nature to man. Science is thus, in 

 a measure, determined by the conditions of its discovery and 

 communication. But we must distinguish between an invari- 

 able condition and that which is thus conditioned. Matter is 

 not science ; it is only the condition of its discovery and com- 

 munication. Air is not hearing; it is the condition of hear- 

 ing. We do not study matter for the sake of the matter 

 when we study science, but for the sake of the law communi- 

 cated to us in these changes of matter, and Law is a metaphy- 

 sical, not a physical idea. Reason, not sense, apprehends it. 

 Law is, so to speak, formulated in the physical, but it is not 

 material. Matter is only the vehicle of science, as language is 

 the vehicle of thought. 



It is plain, then, that just as in mathematics we have a di- 

 vision into pure and mixed, according as we deal with matter 

 in the abstract or in the concrete, so we may in any science 

 make a corresponding division, according as we confine our 

 attention to the laws revealed by matter or to the matter re- 

 vealing the laws: in other words; just as we give attention to 

 the ideas of the message, or to the language in which it is 

 communicated. The language must first be learned, but the 

 words used to communicate the message may be separately 

 understood, and yet the meaning of the message wholly 

 missed. Knowing only the one makes a charlatan ; knowing 

 the other makes a savan. The sciences based upon this ob- 

 jective study of Nature are denominated Natural Sciences; 

 and because they lisp the first syllables of Nature's message 

 to man, they should be his primary teachers. It is by their 

 aid that the universal message of God to man must be read. 

 They form, as it were, a public highway leading from Nature 

 to God. But the difficulty is that observing men become so 

 absorbed in admiring some splendid piece of Divine engin- 



